Ten Unsung Windows Server 2008 R2 Features

Active Directory Recycle Bin is designed to minimize directory service downtime by increasing your ability to preserve and restore accidentally deleted Active Directory objects without restoring Active Directory data from backups, restarting Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), or rebooting domain controllers.

The original design of the Domain Name System (DNS) did not include security; instead it was designed to be a scalable distributed system, Microsoft officials say. Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC)was designed to help improve security by protecting Internet resolvers (clients) from forged DNS data. All answers in DNSSEC are digitally signed and by checking the digital signature, a DNS resolver is able to check if the information is identical (correct and complete) to the information on the authoritative DNS server.

Windows Server 2008 R2 is easier to evaluate, the Softies say. The new evaluation version includes a single, general purpose product key built-in. Users can simply install it and choose to activate the evaluation version automatically. A desktop watermark will count down the days of the 180 day evaluation period -– with no need to periodically “re-arm” the evaluation version in order to extend the time as was required in previous versions.

Server Manager has been updated to allow remote administration of servers. Server Manager guides administrators through the process of installing, configuring, and managing server roles and features that are part of Windows Server 2008 R2. Server Manager replaces several features provided in previous versions of Windows Server, including Manage Your Server, Configure Your Server, and Add or Remove Windows Components.

Boot from SAN is designed to eliminate the need for local hard disks in individual servers –- or even desktops in certain Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) deployments. Booting from SAN can help reduce the number of disks in a datacenter, and thus also help reduce power consumption, according to Microsoft. There's also a new capability to boot a physical server directly from Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files.

Trigger-Started Services are new with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. Before, services were typically started at system boot time and ran until system shutdown. Now, services can specify start and stop conditions (triggers). For example, a group policy that enforces the use of BitLocker technology could trigger the start of the service. Or a service could be triggered to start only when a particular device is available. Services not needed for a particular server or configuration need not be started at boot time, preserving system resources and reducing the load on the system.

In the past, the machine joining tan Active Directory domain needed to be up and running with network connectivity to a Domain controller at the time of the join. Offline Domain Join eliminates this requirement, thus simplifying server deployment.

Windows PowerShell provides a new GUI that allows you to interactively create and debug Windows PowerShell scripts. This integrated scripting environment includes capabilities similar to some of Microsoft Visual Studio’s capabilities, such as colored syntax. The new Out-GridView cmdlet is a tool for displaying the results of PowerShell commands in an interactive table in a GUI which includes capabilities to search, sort, filter and group the results.

Full support for ASP. NET on Server Core installations enables more flexible Web application deployment. If you had a web application that required ASP.NET you could deploy it on WS2008, but would have to do so in a full installation of WS2008. Now you can use a Server Core installation.Server Core installations are smaller, with less “attack surface” and thus desirable for hosting applications such as Internet-facing websites.

Faxes can now be automatically scanned into SharePoint hosts and turned into text with Optical Character Recognition (OCR).